Phuket part 1 / Kylie's first plane ride!

By Esther Rachel Lai. - 8/12/2014

So just last Sunday, we took our first family vacation! All three of us woke up before the crack of dawn to catch our plane bound for Phuket! It was also gonna be Kylie's very first plane ride & the days leading up to our trip, every time I reminded Kylie of her first plane ride, her face would beam in excitement. Shane & I on the other hand, couldn't wait to see her reaction on the plane!

A very excited Kylie & her still-pretty-stoned dad. We had to wake up at 5:30am that morning & Shane looked so sleepy the entire time we were in Changi airport.



Very happy Kylie while we had our breakfast.

& my wonderful in-laws who woke up bright and early to see us off as well.


Into the departure gates we go!

On the coach to our plane!

Buckling up the moment she's on her seat!


Her very fortunate stuffed pooch, Bala got to follow us on the trip too!




Followed advice from a friend's mother and bought ear plugs for her to ease the pressure on her ears.

& of course, a book to keep her entertained on the plane. 

& ironically, she asked me to fold a paper plane for her.

Kylie: "Mommy, How is the clouds on the ground??"
"Mommy!! The sky is down!!!"

Mesmerising view up in the clouds.

I also made sure we taped down Kylie's reaction on her very first plane ride. So for your viewing pleasure, & our memories' sake, here it is!

Heeded a really great advice from friends and relatives to catch a shared minibus to our resort instead of a cab. It saved us quite a few bucks! We paid only 180baht per head (excluding Kylie) compared to a flat 900baht to Patong area. Kylie and I even had the luxury of taking the front seats while poor Shane had to sit at the back along with all the other tourists. The minibus made a stop at a local tour agency where you can book your tours to Phi Phi Island, Fantasea etc. though but from my in-law's experience, the last time they went, they took a cab from the airport and the cabby also made a stop at the tour agency so it really isn't much of a difference. Also, we were pretty lucky because we were the first to get dropped off so we didn't have to sit & wait for the driver to drop off the other tourists at their resorts one by one.

I booked my trip again, through Expedia & got a really great deal. I was initially looking at a trip to Langkawi but decided against it after realising how expensive and much less attractive the resorts are compared to the ones in Phuket. Also, Phuket's currency is much much lower than Langkawi so we'd save a whole lot more in general.

I was searching for a resort with a private pool/jacuzzi because Shane & I wanted a bit of a private time together while the little one slept at night. & as I was searching, I stumbled across a really cheap resort I could upgrade to the One bedroom pool villa with just a few hundred bucks more. 

The Blue Marine Resort & Spa Managed by Centara
  1. Address: 290/1 Prabaramee Road, Patong, Kathu, Phuket, Phrabarami Ha Alley, Patong, Kathu District, Phuket 83150, Thailand

Upon seeing the images of the villa, I was completely sold & booked the resort without a second thought. I later read through reviews of the resort & was pretty shocked at the amount of bad reviews there were. There were complaints about the resort being dirty, & many complaints about it's lousy service. This got me pretty worried but I couldn't cancel my booking cause there's no refund so I decided to just take the leap of faith & pray it would be awesome.

When we arrived at the lobby, it wasn't nothing amazing or anything & there were people waiting around but we were checked in pretty quick with the receptionist telling us "Lucky you, your room is ready!" Shane went "Oh!" & beamed. What he didn't know was that I'd actually put up a request through Expedia for an early check-in knowing we'd be there 3 hours before the hotel's check in time. I'm a perfectionist and a worry wart & Shane's the laid-back, anything goes kind of dude so when we travel, I handle everything from the booking of hotel and flight arrangements to packing our luggage, right down to planning our day-to-day itinerary for our entire trip & he basically just goes with it.

Our Villa was atop a very very steep hill & the resort had a buggy to shuttle us all the way up. I love the shuttle service, all we had to do was dial "0" & the shuttle would reach our doorstep in a matter of minutes - contrary to the bad reviews saying that the shuttle took ages to arrive! We often found ourselves scrambling to grab our things & put on our shoes while the staff waited patiently outside our villa for us.

Anyway, upon reaching our villa, our jaws just dropped.

We were awed at just how splendid & luxurious our villa was! EVERYTHING was amazing! It completely took our breaths away! The villa was HUGE & the infinity pool had a view TO-DIE-FOR! When Shane & I posted pictures of our villa on fb/instagram so many of our friends and relatives went "WOW! Where's this place?!?"
This really was pretty much five star to us! Especially since we had an extremely good deal for it (I think also because we went during the low season. Resort prices in Phuket rockets sky-high in peak periods). Alright enough talk, here are pictures of our lovely Villa!
Huge open concept bathroom with double sinks & a gigantic mirror!

I absolutely love the interior of the bathroom.

& a really big dressing table as well!


Not forgetting, the enormous bathtub that overlooks the sea! Biggest bathtub I've ever seen! It's half the size of my in-law's kitchen & can fit like 6(?) adults sitting cross-legged in it!

The dining/living area.

Love the couch on a raised platform. Just so chill, makes you wanna laze the day away in front of the telly.

& of course, the bedroom.

& an incredible view of our pool & the horizon.




The place was just as good as it looks on the resort's website, in fact, it was even better in real life!
Kylie: "I love our new house!!"
Heh, I wish it was our house! 





An astonishing view of Patong beach which was about a 15mins walk from our resort but our resort is SO awesome, they even have a shuttle to send us to the beach (at dedicated time slots)!

Because the photos do not do enough justice to our villa, here's a video tour of it as well!
P.S. Don't mind the low quality, I had the video taken from my phone.


We were in paradise & Kylie was beyond thrilled. The first thing we did after snapping all those photos of our villa was to grab our swim suits out of our luggage & jump straight into the pool! We didn't even unpack our lugagge yet!

Shane fighting the cold water while Kylie's completely enjoying herself. Oh & guess what, this villa not just has a private pool, it has a jacuzzi in the pool as well! It's that shallow portion that Shane & Kylie are standing on. Kylie calls it the "baby pool".
I did something really childish & pushed Shane into the pool cause he was so afraid to jump into the cold water but prior to that I had applied sunblock for Kylie & my hands were pretty greasy. When I pushed Shane into the pool, he reached his arms out which brushed against my hand & I think when that happened, my wedding ring flew off my finger and went off the pool. We couldn't find the ring anywhere :( 

A little sad about it but it gives Shane all the more reason to get me an actual wedding ring (haha.)

The rest of the pool is pretty deep, about chest deep for me & I'm 1.7m tall.















After our dip in the pool, we all got dressed to head to Jungceylon, Phuket's famous shopping centre. Again, our resort being awesome as usual, had a free shuttle to take us there! Honestly, what bad service? The entire time we were there, their service was impeccable, no doubt.

On the buggy to the lobby!



Of course the shuttle had dedicated timings and we had about an hour to spare so we decided to go grab a quick lunch nearby first.


Walked down the street & stumbled upon this humble street stall.










In the minibus to Jungceylon!

The mall's pretty impressive, with lots of places to dine in. We didn't really shop though, only bought a couple of stuff & Kylie's birthday present.




Little one knocked out after a while.

Shane says she looks just like me when she sleeps.

They've a really huge supermarket there too. It's like Singapore's Giant Hypermarket. We bought lots of snacks and a few bottles of beer from there. All geared up for our stay in the resort.


Headed back to our resort where we relaxed for a couple of hours before heading to Patong beach to hunt for dinner (which we would regret later in our trip).







You can set off fireworks by the beach at just 500Baht! People were setting them off as we dined, what a sight!



We randomly picked one of the seafood stalls to dine at. & unfortunately, it gave Shane a horrible food poisoning on our 2nd night. I also came down with quite a bad tummy. I think it was the "fresh" oysters we had. 
Note-to-self: having raw seafood overseas is a stupid idea. a very very stupid idea.

Anyway, after our dinner, we went to put off lanterns in the sky after hearing Chanel tell me about it. I've never done it before so it was a first for all of us.

The wind was really strong that night & the guys had quite a bit of a trouble helping us set the thing off. Kylie was a little scared of the fire.


When we finally did let the lantern fly...

The wind took it straight into a tree.

& it just caught fire. Good thing it didn't burn down the tree.


As we were strolling back to our resort, another man approached us with a lantern & guaranteed he'd make it fly so we decided to give it another shot.




& this time, it really did fly! We paid 100baht for each lantern. Quite a nice sight to see it float into the sky.





 The moon was really bright and round that night. The blackness of the sea as it reflected the moonlight was strangely alluring, calming. 
Ended the night with a relaxing bubble bath!

I'll continue with the second part of our Phuket trip another time. Actually struggled through this entry because I'm down with an extremely bad flu. Been feeling under the weather since our return from Phuket. Our first half of the trip was really awesome, until both of us fell ill thanks to the seafood. Definitely wish we had a second chance with Phuket! For now, even the word "Phuket" makes Shane's stomach turn. Will tell you more about the drama we faced on our second night in the next post so stay tuned!!


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1 comments

  1. A very excited Kylie & her still-pretty-stoned dad.

    ReplyDelete